Technical Reports - Query Results

We describe a visualization strategy that is capable of efficiently representing relevant perceptual qualities of textural sounds. The general aim is to develop intuitive screen-based interfaces representing large collections of sounds, where sound retrieval shall be much facilitated by the exploitation of cross-modal mechanisms of human perception. We propose the use of metaphoric sensory properties that are shared between sounds and graphics, constructing a meaningful mapping of auditory to visual dimensions. For this purpose, we have implemented a visualization using tiled maps, essentially combining low-dimensional projection and iconic representation. To prove the suitability we show detailed results of experiments having been conducted in the form of an online survey. Potential future use in music creation is illustrated by a prototypic sound browser application.